Ziza Vita

It was cold. We were lost.

The rain had only recently subsided, and we were starving. A few hours earlier, we had departed Venice for Brescia, a tiny town in northern Italy that few would consider more than a timestamp on a stretch of rail ushering passengers (who, most likely, probably knew better) to places like Verona or Milan -- places where Italy was postcard perfect as soon as you got off the train. But not us. We saw Brescia as a necessary tangent, an experiment of faith to determine if Italy's charm would still deliver behind the scenes. If a traveler strayed from the holy trinity of Rome, Venice and Florence, would the beautiful country, il bel paese, continue to be worth the hype?

Shouldering our backpacks and shrugging off a few stares, my husband and I detrained at Stazione di Brescia to find out.

As the night progressed, we would come to experience a series of unfortunate events in Brescia. Beginning with a barren train station, a vacant ticket booth, slick streets and muddy potholes, which led to a hidden address, a surprised desk clerk, no spoken English, and a lost reservation. There would be many times when we’d second-guess our naïve sense of wanderlust, wondering if – of all places – we had chosen the one dot on the map capable of severing the love of a country. Was it Brescia?

We found a long cement wall and followed it, hoping that at some point it would spill open into a secret piazza with a vine-thatched roof and nonna-staffed kitchen. It didn't. It was the outer perimeter of the Cimitero Vantiniano, not exactly the quintessential dinner spot that we were hoping for. Faith waning, we continued to stroll the city's outskirts looking for something -- anything -- to eat. We passed construction zones and abandoned petrol stations, darkened windows and suspicious bystanders.

We had finally given up when we saw it. A literal light at the end of the tunnel, Ristorante Pizzeria La Lampara (translated "the lantern" in Italian) sat waiting for us on the corner of via Sebino. We were like moths to its glass windows, which beamed in the dark as if having halos for frames. Inside, there were no guests in the dining room, only families. Every seat was full; every plate sat happily painted with tomato sauce remnants and bits of crust.

The menu was generous, but my eyes caught only one thing: Mozzarella di Bufala. I sliced into her slowly, and let her heavy softness melt on my tongue. At that moment, Italy did too; I’ve believed ever since.